I only saw two spots that seemed in want of citations. If anyone thinks something else needs to be supported I can add a reference. Also added the link to the appic data.
This eventually should be distributed across the following listserves: APAGS, 9, 12, 16, 17, 22, 29, 31, 40, 44, 35, 51. When it's ready.
Dear APA,
The internship match system is proving to be an increasingly arduous hurdle for many aspiring young psychologists. This year, 79% of students matched for internship through the APPIC system in both rounds 1 and 2, and, of those, an even smaller percentage matched to APA internships (
http://www.appic.org/match/5_2_2_1_13c_match_about_statistics_general_2011Comb.html). Further, a substantial number in states such as California forgo APA/APPIC entirely, electing for unregulated internship experiences. It appears that the influence of APA is being marginalized. Rather than a set of minimum standards, APA compliance is becoming increasingly elite. If this trend continues, its influence on the direction of psychology will be further degraded.
There are now far more psychology graduate students applying for internship every year than there are positions. The imbalance and erosion of standards appears to be the product of rapid expansion of graduate schools in professional psychology (Parent & Williamson, 2010). The inflation in number of students over the past decade has not been matched by either the number of available APA accredited internship slots or the demand for clinical psychologists in the workforce. While it is clear that a few programs are responsible for much of these problems, we do not believe the "weeding out" process should be conducted on the back-end, after huge amounts of time and money have been invested, but on the front-end. Students entering into professional schools of psychology are at a particularly vulnerable period in their lives, most not yet having the economic savvy to understand the ramifications of debt, nor education in the realities of the field with respect to what it takes to be competitive, to secure a quality internship and postdoctoral training, and to attain a professional level job (not one that is occupied just as easily by social workers or other masters level providers).
To address these problems, we suggest that the APA regulate the most grievous offenders that put our young professional population in greatest jeopardy, burdened with 6-figure debt, poor internship prospects, and a cascade effect that could be ruinous to both the livelihood and happiness of many of our workforce but also the quality of the product that we offer as psychologists. This recommendation is consistent with recommendations by researchers on the topic of the internship imbalance (Parent & Williamson, 2010; Stedman, Schoenfeld, Carroll, & Allen, 2009) The current situation is akin to other predatory loan schemes and should fall within, at least, morally, the concept of usury laws.
We request that the APA sanction programs that use the student loan system as a method of existence, charging at the limits of what is borrowable. These programs are not good citizens in the psychology professional community. Further, we strongly suggest that APA remove accreditation from these programs, and advocate that state licensing boards deny licensure to new students after a target date (one that does not affect current students). This would serve many important goals for our field. 1) It would end the internship imbalance. 2) It would limit the amount of debt our professionals are saddled with upon graduation 3) It would improve the quality of internship opportunities by alleviating the burden of review that all sites face as they are bombarded with hundreds of applications; limiting this would allow sites to conduct a more thorough evaluation of candidates 4) It would improve the quality of internship programs that students select (e.g., again, many programs in California encourage student to attend non-APA accredited sites, many unfunded; many students now match to non-APA accredited sites) 5) It would protect the public from overly-stressed and poorly educated professionals.
Sincerely,
People against the unethical treatment of students of psychology.
References
Parent, M. C. & Williamson, J. B. (2010). Program disparities in unmatched internship applicants. Training & Education in Professional Psychology, 4,116-120.
Stedman, J. M., Schoenfeld, L. S., Carroll, K., & Allen, T. F. (2009). The internship supply-demand crisis: Time for a solution is now. Training & Education in Professional Psychology, 3,135-139.
